Damien Galeone

At this moment, I am the living embodiment of a man who is 39, drinks like he’s 29, and recovers like he’s 49. There’s a thing existing in my head called pain. I am doing that morning after shuffle around my flat. I am in pajamas because putting on pants would hurt my head too much. I squint at things and grumble and moan.

I have thought ahead. In anticipation of this exact situation, I bought a frozen pizza. My plan was to suffer, watch mindless TV, and eat pizza. Aka: A perfect hangover day. Enter Mr. Murphy and his shitty ironic laws that are the instruction manual to my life.

My oven is broken.

After reacting in a frankly melodramatic manner to something this minor, I shuffle over to the window and stare longingly down at the city. There’s a whole world of food out there, but the mere thought of stepping out-of-doors is just insanity. What I really want is for someone to bring me food.

I live on top of a hill. In fact, I live in the middle of a hill. This means that my view is magnificent, I don’t have to worry about floods, and when the zombie apocalypse comes I’ll have a good strategic position. But in practical every day situations, I am screwed. Every time I leave my house I either have to go up or down. Every time I come home I walk a mile from the metro or up a hill that would have winded Tenzing Norgay. Even going to my local pub means a seven minute walk down and then a ten minute walk up. I hate up. And as anyone who’s been here can tell you, everything in Prague is up.

One of my favorite aspects of living in Europe has been the increase in walking. Because of public transport and my lack of car, I walk far more than I ever did living in the U.S. Surely this is one of the very few things keeping me in the category labeled chubby and out of the category labeled morbidly obese.

And while I normally don’t miss cars and I really enjoy walking, at times it can be a pain. Like right now. It’s times like these that I long for the uber-convenience of the United States. And first and foremost on this list of uber-conveniences is delivered food. While living in Pittsburgh, I developed several relationships with delivery people that delved far deeper than a customer-delivery person relationship usually goes. I knew about the Pizza Hut guy’s kids, the gent at the Chinese restaurant used to answer the phone, “Hello Damien or Jamie (my equally order-happy flatmate).” The delivery lady from another pizza place used to call on the way and ask us if we wanted her to pick up a six-pack. Sometimes she would schedule us last on her shift and stay for a beer.

I no doubt lead a far healthier and more active life in Prague than I did in Pittsburgh. If I still lived there, I’d be riding one of those scooters around the mall and wearing a muumuu.

In any event, I still need food and feeling healthier doesn’t help me out right now. And desperate times call for desperate measure, so I decide to cook my pizza on the stove top. This takes longer than you’d think. And as it cooks, I’d kill for a Czech Dabbawala.

I bet they’d even grab me some beer on the way.